How Amtrak Derailed the Passenger Train

[Rich_S]

Any requirement by the government to spend money that does not lead to bigger profits is viewed as a tax by corporations.

so amtrak was created...
 

Victor, I'm not sure how old you are and it's really not that important, but I was alive before Amtrak. Lets be very honest, the passenger rail business before Amtrak was causing railroads to bleed money. If the government (read the ICC) would have continued to force the railroads to maintain their passenger rail service, we would only have one railroad company today, a nationalized company. I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but railroads were required to maintain passenger routes that had a ridership of zero. Even though the railroads are privately owned companies, they simply could not decided to stop passenger trains without the governments approval. That is why they ask the government for permission to shed their passenger business. The number one reason rail passenger business was dying in the US was the Air Lines and automobiles. I'm not saying this is good or bad, please don't read anything political into this, it's just a fact. The government created Amtrak because a portion of the US public did not want to see the passenger trains disappear and the railroads could not continue to loose money every year on passenger services. Remember at that point in time railroads were also loosing money on freight traffic due to the trucking industry. One of the biggest reasons that Penn Central was created, they had hoped the merged company could turn a profit, the New York Central was already operating in the red and the P company was breaking even.

What is the point of my long winded thread, railroad companies need to earn a profit so they can purchase new equipment, facilities etc. If they continue to operate year after year and only break even, it will reach a point where they will have worn out equipment and can no longer maintain their business. The railroad company I work for just recently built a new maintenance facility that was completely paid for by profits. 

High speed passenger rail works in Europe because the cities are so close together, a train is as fast as a jet. That is why the Northeast corridor is so popular, door to door service from Washington to New York is almost equal between Amtrak and the Airline industry. The same is not so between New York and Chicago or San Fransisco. I'd hate to see Amtrak disappear, but at the same time I like the convenience of my car and I also enjoy the two hour flight to Florida vs. a two day trip by rail. So the actual bottom line is, how much money do you really want to waste on a service most people in the US are not interested in?

[Spikre]

 
  when the Post office terminated most Mail Contracts that were still
  in effect during 1966/67,that was the Nail that Killed 98% of Long
  Distance Passenger trains.
   Santa Fe was an exception that still made money,but most other
  roads barely broke even,or had losses on the remaining trains.
  then several roads took the Losses after Amtrak and didn't join,
  Southern,Rio Grande,and the Rock come to mind.
  the Rock couldn't raise the money to join Amtak,but the other
  roads weren't in that sort of position.
      Spikre
       

[victor miranda]

 "Lets be very honest, the passenger rail business before Amtrak was causing railroads to bleed money."

Hi Rich_S,

well I do agree that in the 60's was not a robust time for passenger trains.

Your sentence could say "the rail business before Amtrak was causing railroads to bleed money."
and It would be just as true.
a lot of railroads were not making profits then.

At this point one thing I consider crucial to both understanding what must be done
to make highspeed passenger service possible
is as simple as acknowledging that the requirement to run passenger service
was a tax on the railroads.

because what happened after that is why we do not have a train based passenger service here in the U.S.

the railroad companies pretty effectively set passenger trains to lowest possible priority.
so not only did they get a tax break they took the path that
we will not allow anyone else to have decent passenger service on our rails either.

that is a double dip for avoiding any burdens and a is pretty greedy...
all told this is the reason Amtrak suffers

to truthfully face our present situation.
I am sure that -->if<--  the trains were able to run reliably and all that does imply...
that there would be a good number of people who would use it.
and I am sure like so many things, there will be taxpayers supporting it.

This is instead of taxing the railroad companies to do the same service.
keep in mind that the 'tax' of right-of-way use of the rails is still in place,
that is a tax on the gross income. it will be paid before any other bill.

Two days from ny to florida is waaaay too long and we know faster is very possible
without resorting to "highspeedtrains"

thus we are back to the concept 'sharing' or taxes.

I'm not in charge. so my outlook is not likely to carry very far.

Now, about whether or not the U.S. should have passenger service at all.

I have to repeat something I said in another thread...
I am not sure is passenger rail service across the states is a good idea.
for the most part the time/rate/distance numbers favor air travel.

however.... there is no better way to move a LOT of people in a short time than by railroads.

in the War of Northern Agression, the North moved armies by rail
and the mobility was unmatched by the South.

so far we have not had many reasons to move millions of people as fast as possible.
I will point out that a lot more people could have left neworleans a few years back
if the roads had not been jammed.... you think the passenger trains may have helped?

so there is some good reason to keep passenger service alive.
(paid by Taxpayers and positively supported by the freight rail companies)

[Rich_S]

At this point one thing I consider crucial to both understanding what must be done
to make highspeed passenger service possible
is as simple as acknowledging that the requirement to run passenger service
was a tax on the railroads.

No requiring railroads to haul government supplies, personal etc. at a reduced rate and still requiring the railroads to pay property and corporate income tax was taxing on the railroads.

the railroad companies pretty effectively set passenger trains to lowest possible priority.
so not only did they get a tax break they took the path that
we will not allow anyone else to have decent passenger service on our rails either.
that is a double dip for avoiding any burdens and a is pretty greedy...

That is not true either, railroads do their best to give passengers trains the same priority as inter-modal trains. Railroad right of ways are private property, it's like me parking my car in your driveway then telling you I'll pay your $5 a month for taking up the extra space.

in the War of Northern Agression, the North moved armies by rail
and the mobility was unmatched by the South.

First off lets call it by it's true name, the civil war. Second yes in 1864 the train was a better mode of transportation verses the horse and wagon or walking.

so there is some good reason to keep passenger service alive.
(paid by Taxpayers and positively supported by the freight rail companies)

The railroads also have the responsibility to move the freight of it's customers. Now if you don't mind waiting a month for that new LED TV or new car and you can convince the general public they will just have to wait for their merchandise, because all passenger trains have priority, then your wish maybe granted.

The only way the US will ever have high speed rail is if Amtrak starts laying it's own tracks. The only reason the railroads became profitable again was because of the Staggers Rail Act, that gave the railroads more control over their own companies, if you start imposing new regulations on the rail industry, we just might end up back in the 1960's. 

If you think I'm out in left field, just ask people from states like Kansas, South Dakota, Idaho or Oklahoma if they'd be willing to pay an additional tax to support Amtrak?       

[packers#1]

At this point one thing I consider crucial to both understanding what must be done
to make highspeed passenger service possible
is as simple as convincing the general public that they would rather a high speed train than drive or fly

FTFY

I don't believe the railroads killed passenger trains. I believe what you see as the railroads killing passenger trains, is actually what they did in response to the free market decisions by individuals that they would rather fly in an airplane or drive in a car than take a train.

[victor miranda]

No requiring railroads to haul government supplies, personal etc. at a reduced rate and still requiring the railroads to pay property and corporate income tax was taxing on the railroads.

That is not true either, railroads do their best to give passengers trains the same priority as inter-modal trains. Railroad right of ways are private property, it's like me parking my car in your driveway then telling you I'll pay your $5 a month for taking up the extra space.

First off lets call it by it's true name, the civil war. Second yes in 1864 the train was a better mode of transportation verses the horse and wagon or walking.

The railroads also have the responsibility to move the freight of it's customers. Now if you don't mind waiting a month for that new LED TV or new car and you can convince the general public they will just have to wait for their merchandise, because all passenger trains have priority, then your wish maybe granted.

The only way the US will ever have high speed rail is if Amtrak starts laying it's own tracks. The only reason the railroads became profitable again was because of the Staggers Rail Act, that gave the railroads more control over their own companies, if you start imposing new regulations on the rail industry, we just might end up back in the 1960's. 

If you think I'm out in left field, just ask people from states like Kansas, South Dakota, Idaho or Oklahoma if they'd be willing to pay an additional tax to support Amtrak?     

ok. I made the mistake of listening to you and writing a carefully though out reply.

fear not I will not bother to do so again

[victor miranda]

packers,
please fix the quote.
it looks like you quoted me for something I did not write.

or claim the underlined part as yours.

once that is done.
yup I agree that the underlined part is true.

it is not why I wrote the line before it.
passenger trains are not used in this country because
people think 'plane' not 'train'

a BIIIG part if why that is true is because it is clear that the railroad
companies would prefer not to have passenger train gracing the rails.
... who wants to spend more for a ticket and more time traveling
and...
wait for it...
all at the same time get treated like a second class citizen.

fun stuff.

victor

[packers#1]

packers,
please fix the quote.
it looks like you quoted me for something I did not write.

or claim the underlined part as yours.

once that is done.
yup I agree that the underlined part is true.

it is not why I wrote the line before it.
passenger trains are not used in this country because
people think 'plane' not 'train'

a BIIIG part if why that is true is because it is clear that the railroad
companies would prefer not to have passenger train gracing the rails.
... who wants to spend more for a ticket and more time traveling
and...
wait for it...
all at the same time get treated like a second class citizen.

fun stuff.

victor

The underlined part is mine, it's something that people do on discussion forums; most don't even bold and underline what they changed. FTFY=fixed that for you.

As to why the public chose to take the plane rather than the train, I'd argue it wasn't anything the railroads did, it was simply planes being faster and probably cheaper. Everything you claim the railroads did to shed passenger trains, they actually did because no one was riding the trains, and so to cut the amount of money they were loosing, they stopped spending so much money on passenger trains.

Think about it this way. If your business provides a service to the public that makes you money, you'll spend money on it. If the public doesn't want that service anymore, then they won't spend money on it, and you'll stop providing that service.

However, railroads weren't allowed to stop providing this service because it was written into land grants etc that they had to haul passengers. So, since they couldn't stop providing service, the railroads spent as little money as possible on the trains so they wouldn't loose more money. Then more people stop riding your trains because they're not that pleasant to be on. So you loose more money. And so on and so forth.

That's why the railroads wanted to shed passenger service. Not because they didn't want it, but because it didn't make them money running those trains.

[Albert in N]

Some Amtrak routes are subsidized by states, such as the Heartland Express between Fort Worth TX and OKC OK.  Note that smaller communities between metroplexes have lost intercity bus (Greyhound) and airline options.  If there is a need, it can be funded if people think, and then vote.  Commuter rail (like TRE) even exists in Texas, plus light rail systems being expanded.  Changing times has even affected airlines.  The internet has eliminated some travel since regional business meetings are often not necessary.  On line ordering with USPS, FedEx, and UPS has eliminated the need for most intercity bus freight.  Without freight, intercity bus services have retracted, as did their railroad predecessors.  Even highways are not being maintained and toll roads are losing favor.  Maybe Amtrak will gain a few voter friends?

[Hyperion]

a BIIIG part if why that is true is because it is clear that the railroad
companies would prefer not to have passenger train gracing the rails.
... who wants to spend more for a ticket and more time traveling
and...
wait for it...
all at the same time get treated like a second class citizen.

fun stuff.

victor

It's not that the railroads "don't want" passenger trains on the rails.  There's not some illogical fear of having passengers on the rails.  Railroads want whatever business actually makes the money.  And there's other things that to run on that rail that make SO MUCH more money.  Or, for that matter, make any money at all.

If there was an incremental net profit gain from running the trains after accounting for ALL the costs, the railroads would be ECSTATIC to run the trains.  It'd be stupid not to run them.  No one's going to turn business away that actually makes them money, but right now Amtrak's access fees (which themselves are usually considerably more than the fares of the passengers on them due to subsidization) don't even come close to covering an apportioned share of the basic maintenance cost of the lines they run on, let alone any of the softer costs of train delay related to their speed differential or, on lines with no excess capacity, the opportunity costs of the additional freight they prevent from being carried.  It's a giant money-, time-, and management-sink that you actually LOSE money to have on the track.  Of course, given that, the railroads would "prefer not" to have passenger trains "gracing" their rails. 

What business operator in the world would want to have a customer come in who demanded an inordinate amount of time, impacted your customer service to all your other customers, and showed up every single day to buy the cheapest thing you had for sale and then only gave you half your asking price for it?

In order to make it make financial sense to operate a passenger train on the rail -- i.e. one where the revenues exceed the fully-loaded costs -- the costs of said ticket would be so astronomically high than people would never do it when they can take a plane for cheaper and faster.  Even if one were to look at what plane fares "should be" without the subsidized infrastructure that they benefit from, the plane would still win out in most cases; if not economically then it would still get almost all the business based on speed.  If people valued money sufficiently enough over speed then we'd still have inter-city bus business (not forgetting Greyhound -- but it's stagnant performance is exactly the point).

[C855B]

...Even if one were to look at what plane fares "should be" without the subsidized infrastructure that they benefit from, the plane would still win out in most cases; if not economically then it would still get almost all the business based on speed. ...

Eh... not necessarily. The airline service model has become so loaded and lopsided against the customer that some of us have drawn lines in the sand. Amtrak ridership everywhere is up significantly, for good reason. Maybe not profitable for anybody yet (and may never be), but up nonetheless. Don't live in a competitive hub city? Air travel sucks a big one in price, time and inconvenience.

I would like to see a truly independent, unbiased study [...good luck with that...] of each mode outlining the full direct costs for each passenger-mile, without the fancy bean-counter gymnastics of assigning nebulous indirects such as "opportunity costs". Apportion fixed per-unit subsidies based on the resulting ratios and especially mode availability.

[victor miranda]

I went and did a little hunting on the interwebs...

here are a few quotes and kinda point out that CSX thinks running passenger trains is a concern.

http://www.ble-t.org/pr/news/pf_headline.asp?id=23217

MTA Administrator Paul J. Wiedefeld said last week that the agency has so far been unable to reach agreements
with Amtrak or CSX,  which own the two lines, on opening up slots in their schedules for the added service.

Bob Sullivan, a spokesman for the freight railroad, said CSX is holding "co-operative" and "cordial" talks with the MTA
 in hopes of finding a solution.
"It's not an easy problem to fix," Sullivan said.
"The major issue we confront is honestly one of capacity and how do you provide additional service without
 degrading the service you already have."

I highlight those two because it shows what happens when a passenger service wants to expand.

the only way trains and passenger services will happen is...
the train companies co-operate ( I do not see it there...)
or
we build a seperate passenger network.

[Rich_S]

ok. I made the mistake of listening to you and writing a carefully though out reply.

fear not I will not bother to do so again

And you thought I would not reply to your reply????? You think my reply was not carefully though out??? My reply is the truth regardless if you are willing to accept it or not?

[Hyperion]

I went and did a little hunting on the interwebs...

here are a few quotes and kinda point out that CSX thinks running passenger trains is a concern.

http://www.ble-t.org/pr/news/pf_headline.asp?id=23217

MTA Administrator Paul J. Wiedefeld said last week that the agency has so far been unable to reach agreements
with Amtrak or CSX,  which own the two lines, on opening up slots in their schedules for the added service.

Bob Sullivan, a spokesman for the freight railroad, said CSX is holding "co-operative" and "cordial" talks with the MTA
 in hopes of finding a solution.
"It's not an easy problem to fix," Sullivan said.
"The major issue we confront is honestly one of capacity and how do you provide additional service without
 degrading the service you already have."

I highlight those two because it shows what happens when a passenger service wants to expand.

the only way trains and passenger services will happen is...
the train companies co-operate ( I do not see it there...)
or
we build a seperate passenger network.

That doesn't say that running passenger trains is a concern.  CSX said trying to fit more trains of any type into their schedule "isn't an easy problem to fix".   It says exactly what I did:  that running trains that make less money in lieu of trains that make lots of it (freight) doesn't make any sense.  Being selective about the business that is taken is something most of the roads have had to do to varying extents for the past decade or so.   CSX has already got all they can handle there, any additional trains will only slow everything else down, especially trains with an average speed that's significantly higher than the remainder of the trains on the line (meaning everything else has to stop for it, it can't just slide into a slot and plod along).

The statement from CSX would be no different if an aggregate company came to them and asked them to move more rock on a line that was already maxxed out with high-margin auto traffic.   

CSX has absolutely no desire to run more passenger trains on lines that are already running at near capacity because running more passengers trains for little to no money makes no sense when that means running less freight there that makes them lots of money.  And laying additional trackage to increase capacity is an extremely expensive proposition, and low-/no-margin passenger traffic isn't going to justify it unless it is subsidized in full by State/Federal government.  Expecting a company to ditch money-making business for business that does not, take on business that impacts their service to all other customers, or spend 9 or 10-figures on new trackage that's not going to generate an equivalent amount of revenue, is not expecting "cooperation" and it is entirely unreasonable to expect them to do so.

On lines where they're not at capacity, the major railroads work with States all over the country to provided state-supported rail service.  Chicago to LA though?  Not gonna see more added to that schedule.  See the Southwest Chief for an example of that.  BNSF is no longer going to pay to maintain routes at standards allowing for 80mph passenger traffic when it has no significant freight presence on the route to justify that amount of investment, but is happy to do it if Amtrak or the government pays the incremental cost to do so.  But at $20M/yr to keep the Pass at 80mph, the New Mexico government was unwilling to pay for the upkeep (and their share was only $4M -- BNSF and 3 surrounding states were all willing to go in on a 5-way equal split).  If the state is unwilling to put in $4M for their own residents (about $30 for every NM resident boarding the Southwest Chief), there's certainly no reason for BNSF to put in $20M for something it doesn't care about and apparently the state doesn't care much about either.  The fact that the railroad was willing to put in 20% of the cost if each nearby state also put in 20% is pretty much the definition of "cooperation" if you ask me.

[John]

I'm kind of confused by some of this capacity issue .. I railfan on occasion on the CSX line in Baltimore to DC .. I can sit and not see anything for an hour or two, then a couple come through at once ..  some of the railroaders I know tell me the dispatchers don't always know how to handle volume either .. I bet if they worked at it -- they could add some capacity